Meanwhile, Heiji was sawing away at the curtain rope in determined fashion. He was three-quarters of the way there before one of the robots, apparently sick of being at an impromptu techno party, spotted him. It leapt off the stage, bowling into theater seats and actually ripping some of them up on its way towards him.

Why didn't it neatly move down a row and chase him using an aisle? Because ROBOTS, that's why. Heiji abandoned the curtain rope and ran down to the right side of the theater, with the robot close behind him. The rope was hanging by a thread now, and he could see that it would probably take less than a minute for the weight of the cloth to snap through the last of it. The only problem was maneuvering the robots so that they were actually in a position to get caught under the cloth in the first place.

He grabbed the science textbooks out of the prop box and hurled them at the pursuing robot before dashing up to the stage.